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There are plenty of hunter buyers who will find certain breeds desirable and having "that brand" could be a plus. Then there are registries that are not so highly regarded, in which case the brand could actually detract from the horse's appeal to those buyers.

The best way to sell a hunter is to get it in the ring and showing. Once the horse has demonstrated it can do the job it's being advertised for, no one will care what breed it is (or isn't.)

I bred two horses, one I branded one I did not. They are both registered ISR/OLD and are both hunters. No one gives a darn whether or not they are branded. No one has ever even asked me why they are full siblings and one is branded and one is not.

In the smaller zones with less people who really know what they are doing, the brands MATTER. I mean matter, crappy mover, sorry jumper, doesn't matter, if you have one real hunter/jumper/eq show barn sorrounded by a community of barrel racers and ropers, you can bet they want every WB they can get. Just to brag to that one other H&J barn across the state at that one B show held every year that they have a new WB. Hilarious, but true! They may be part clueless, but their money isn't.

Also, I like branding because it is like a form of insurrance for your horse, if papers get lost or mixed up, or he is stolen, it is ID, proof of registry, and a value tag. Not many WB's go to slaughter, even fewer branded ones.

I know some people don't lik RPSI right now, and the Oldenburg registry bugs me a bit, but if he is quality, no one will turn him down because of a brand

I breed horses and usually brand my foals. But I do not necessary sell to just the hunter market. But that being said, you can BARELY read the brands, especially on the black and dark brown horses--so I boils down to a personal choice.

Most people don't care. You can't read many of the dang things anyway. I can actually figure most of them out, but still don't think it matters.

Do they brand KWPN here? They don't in Holland.

Ya I don't think KWPN brands :S

I can hardly read my horses brands, I think if they are done properly they should hardly noticable on darker horses. I have had 2 horses with the exact same brand, on my bay one you can't even notice it unless you look really hard, on my chestnut you could only see it because it was smudged when they did it so it was messy.

I love branding, I think it's great for identification purposes (and I think it looks cool). I've never heard of a horse being sold/not being sold because of a brand.

What ID? It may have an SF or an H on the hip but that does not identify the horse at all.

Just my personal opinion but I grew up out west and think it harkens back to cow horses on the open range with the owner's logo burned into their hide. Coming out of AQHA, unless it's a running w, Shelton brand or well known breeder of winners on a cow horse, it's not desireable. I don't care for it. Sometimes it distracts the eye on lighter coat colors-but I'd buy the horse if it had the talent.

I don't think anybody said they would not buy one with a brand but 98% of the buyer pool hardly know what they mean and do not buy based on it.

The two numbers under the brand correspond to two in the life #. The rest in that # are things like country, registry, region, etc. So on a given farm the # might ID completely. Otherwise it's like being able to read two letters on a tattoo and that assumes you can read the #s under the brand.

There are no numbers under the brand on many of them, just the breed symbol. My barn imports alot from Europe. Best friends have a Hanovarian import with just the symbol and numerous SFs with no numbers underneath. One gal with a domestic WB also has just the symbol but I forget what it is. Don't care either-it's a nice horse.

If you added the numbers for ID, that would make sense BUT with no national data base for all such ID's, few would know what it represented or how/where to trace it. These horse go thru a few owners and their real identity gets lost along with the papers so it would be anybody's guess where to start looking unless they were real familiar with the breeding end.

There are no numbers under the brand on many of them, just the breed symbol. My barn imports alot from Europe. Best friends have a Hanovarian import with just the symbol and numerous SFs with no numbers underneath.

I have an imported Hanovarian with the H on his hip and a three digit number on his neck, which corresponds to his reg number. I don't know if this is standard, but at least some of them seem to have the numbers too.